IBM PureFlex Solution for SAP Business Suite (POWER)

© Copyright IBM Corporation, 2013

IBM PureFlex Solution for SAP Business Suite (POWER)

Reference architecture for IBM POWER and IBM AIX based

core SAP systems on IBM PureFlex System

featuring

- IBM Systems Solution for SAP Business Suite and SAP HANA

and

- IBM Entry Cloud Scenarios for SAP solutions

Matthias Koechl Markus Fehling

Mirco Malessa

Wolfgang Reichert

IBM Systems and Technology Group ISV Enablement Version 1.4a - May 2013

Deploying and operating Entry Cloud for SAP solutions on the IBM PureFlex System

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Table of contents

Table of contents ....................................................................................................................... 2

Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 3

IBM PureFlex System overview ............................................................................................................... 3

Platform concept ................................................................................................................ 3

Node scalability and performance ................................................................................. 6

System connectivity ........................................................................................................... 7

Reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features .................................................. 8

SAP reference landscape on IBM PureFlex System ............................................................... 9

Introduction to SAP landscape topology .................................................................................................. 9

Supported SAP solution stacks ............................................................................................................. 10

Landscape planning ............................................................................................................................... 11

System layout concepts .................................................................................................. 11

Introducing the IBM Systems Solution for SAP Business Suite and SAP HANA ........... 12

Storage attachment ......................................................................................................... 13

Integration with existing SAP landscapes .............................................................................................. 17

Integration of complementary SAP components ................................................................................... 19

The IBM Systems Solution for SAP Business Suite and SAP HANA ............................. 19

SAP on AIX reference landscapes for IBM PureFlex System ............................................................... 21

High availability and disaster recovery .................................................................................................. 24

Landscape monitoring and management .............................................................................. 24

IBM PureFlex System integration with SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management ......... 26

Management components ............................................................................................... 27

Managed SAP landscape ................................................................................................ 28

SAP-specific offerings for IBM PureFlex System .................................................................. 30

Lab services and IBM support ............................................................................................................... 30

Summary .................................................................................................................................. 31

Resources ................................................................................................................................ 32

Trademarks and special notices ............................................................................................ 33


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Abstract

This paper provides an overview on how modern SAP ecosystem consisting of the SAP NetWeaver technology layer, SAP Business Suite applications, SAP HANA, and complementary SAP modules can be deployed on an IBM® PureFlex™ System. This paper focuses on IBM POWER processor-based units (POWER compute nodes) hosting the classical SAP core components. It also describes how complementary x 86-based IBM PureFlex System units can be integrated for specific SAP scenarios, while still maintaining a unified systems management. Related documents with a x86- and POWER IBM i focus are available, too. Links are included in the Resources section.

The newly released ”IBM Systems Solution for SAP Business Suite and SAP HANA” extends the SAP application portfolio which can be deployed on the internal PureFlex nodes with external special purpose compute nodes, namely IBM System x servers running a SAP HANA in-memory database and applications.Typical use cases for IBM PureFlex System-only landscapes are described and also some comments are about the integration of an IBM PureFlex System with existing SAP customer infrastructures are explained in this paper.

The IBM Flex System Manager serves as the unified management console for the components contained within the IBM PureFlex System chassis. This paper describes the Flex System Manager functions available and how they fit into SAP landscape monitoring.

On the application side, the Flex System Manager integrates with the SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management, enabling consistent management of infrastructure and SAP application layers. The paper also illustrates the architecture and benefits which can be achieved by combining IBM platform technologies with infrastructure management tools of the SAP NetWeaver stack. The combination of the SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management software and IBM Flex System Manager supports cloud-enabling tasks as there are SAP system provisioning, cloning, copying, and refreshing in a highly automated manner.

Introduction

The Introduction section provides an overview of the IBM® PureFlex™ System components.

IBM PureFlex System overview

Platform concept

The IBM PureFlex System is an integration platform for different server architectures (IBM POWER®

and x86) and the associated operating systems. Integration also applies for systems storage from a

physical and management perspective. Each IBM PureFlex System base system contains two layers

of hardware management:

Chassis Management Module (CMM)

The CMM replaces the Advanced Management Module known from the traditional IBM

BladeCenter® servers. Both provide basic infrastructure access and management.

Flex System Manager (FSM)

The CMM can be complemented by a dedicated management node running the Flex System

Manager (FSM) software stack while providing unified access and end-to-end management

of up to four heterogeneously populated IBM PureFlex System chassis. Technically, the FSM


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is an 8-core appliance node running Linux® and kernel-based virtual machine (KVM), and the

FSM software on top. Optionally, the FSM appliance can be duplicated for resiliency of this

focal management layer. Some key FSM functions include:

Management of up to four chassis

Setup and configuration wizards

Heterogeneous nodes, server, storage, network lifecycle management

Discovery, inventory, updates, configuration, status, reliable logging / events

IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager™ feature

Network control with Voltaire Fabric Management (discovery and monitoring,

fabric service provisioning)

Single sign-on, audit logging, role-based access control, user management

Integration APIs to higher-level systems and enterprise management software, like IBM

SmartCloud® or IBM Tivoli® products

Figure 1: IBM PureFlex System Portfolio

This concept matches the trend to heterogeneous SAP system landscapes. Customers can deploy

exactly the server units within the IBM PureFlex System that they need to best accommodate their

functional and nonfunctional SAP application requirements. Although the core SAP Business Suite

applications support almost all platforms and virtualization layers, certain SAP components, such as

BWA, HANA, and TREX are linked to the x86 processors and a Linux OS for example. IBM PureFlex

System with FSM allow for a unified monitoring and administration independent from the platform and

OS mix while fully using the native platform strengths of each IBM server family and the related

environments.


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Besides the compute nodes, customers can integrate the IBM Flex System V7000 Storage Node

with full IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller functionality into the same 10U-chassis.

Key storage management functions supported include:

Fully virtualized storage and virtualization of third party external storage

IBM System Storage Easy Tier™

Thin provisioning

Real-Time disk compression

Storage Management integrated with Flex System Manager

The storage node includes a storage controller and space for up to 24 disks with a maximum capacity

of 900 GB each. This allows for a gross data volume of up to 2,1 TB within a very compact volume.

Attachment to DB server nodes is done using a fast internal network without peripheral equipment and

complexity. The internal IBM PureFlex System disk capacity can be extended by attaching external

Storwize V7000 expansion units or other external storage devices through the SAN Volume Controller

capabilities of the Storwize V7000 controller.

POWER based PureFlex Systems can be ordered in three pre-configured flavors: Express. Standard,

and Enterprise configurations are available.

Table 1: PureFlex POWER based component stack

As of November 2012 build-to-order systems (BTU) are available, too. These systems are referred to

as “Flex Systems” versus the pre-packaged “PureFlex” configurations specified in Table 1. BTU


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systems offer the advantage of higher configuration flexibility for the price of less integration and

automization through built-in expertise.

Node scalability and performance

Node scalability and performance applies to the vertical scalability and transaction performance of

individual nodes contained within an IBM PureFlex System chassis. Published SAP ECC 6.0 EHP 4

Sales and Distribution benchmarks provide leadership SAP Application Performance Standard (SAPS)

capacities:

POWER Node Number of

cores@frequency

SAPS ECC 6.0

Certification No.

IBM PureFlex p260 node 8@3,3 / 16@3,55GHz

IBM PureFlex p260+ node 8@4,1 / 16@3,6/4,1GHz 54.700

2012035

IBM PureFlex p460 node 16 / 32@3,55GHz 93.080

2012015

Table 2: POWER compute nodes overview

The SAPS capacity of the new 32-core POWER nodes is about 40% higher compared to an IBM

BladeCenter PS704 Express blade with the same number of cores, and it compares well with an IBM

Power® 750 32-core system. This discrete system has been very successful in the midrange SAP

marketplace. Consequently, customers can easily migrate from discrete mid-size servers to an IBM

PureFlex System node of their choice without redesigning their SAP landscape and changing the

existing operational environment.

The November 2012 announcement has introduced newest POWER7+ technology to the p260+ half-

wide nodes. A higher frequency, but mostly a 2,5x larger cache provide additional +25% SAPS

capacity according to SAP S&D benchmark results in Table 2For those customers who need

scalability beyond a single node, or prefer SAP 3-tier implementations, or scale-out DB servers, the

IBM PureFlex System chassis and its inherent network topology provides an ideal physical

consolidation platform with a single point of control for infrastructure management.

IBM PureFlex System scalability continues in the way that multiple (up to four) chassis can be

clustered and still managed as a single IT entity. However, when it comes to application scalability

across nodes, classical parameters such as networking latency also need to be considered.

Caution needs to be paid to the available physical memory per node respectively per SAP system.

Depending on the type of internal disks installed in a POWER node, it is not possible to install the

maximum amount of memory. That is why it’s not recommended to use internal disks for POWER

nodes running SAP applications. Storage should be provided by an external solution. See section

“Storage attachment” for details.

http://download.sap.com/download.epd?context=40E2D9D5E00EEF7CACD36E204F0A9D6F57C229650C4B8A985F61832D331FE3FF

http://download.sap.com/download.epd?context=40E2D9D5E00EEF7CC44466CE78699E3377FB9BEFF5A058915C033C3BD00B024B


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System connectivity

IBM PureFlex System provides state-of-the-art system connectivity by scalable switch elements

providing up to four switch partitions per physical switch (three partitions at for initial release). These

can be a combination of:

24-port BNT, 10Gb Fibre Channel over Convergence Enhanced Ethernet (software

key to increase ports)

20-port, 8Gb FC

24-port BNT, 1Gb

48-port BNT, 1Gb (SW key to increase four 10Gb ports)

Mezzanine cards:

2-port 8Gb FC (QLogic)

4-port 1Gb (Broadcom)

The scalable structure allows extending I/O capacity along with increasing application needs. As the

number of nodes and their I/O adapters grow, additional switch capacity can be installed in an IBM

PureFlex System chassis.

Figure 2: IBM PureFlex System switch configurations

The IBM PureFlex System network topology provides an internal network for monitoring and

management purposes. This is used by the CMM and the FSM appliance to interact with the hardware

components and virtualization layers.


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Figure 3: IBM PureFlex System network topology

Reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features

SAP business applications are mostly mission-critical. Hence, reliability and minimum downtimes of a

platform are of high significance. IBM PureFlex System components have inherited many RAS

attributes of the discrete IBM server families.

Hot plug power and cooling

Concurrent firmware code updates

Processor de-allocation

Hot plug nodes

Dual-power supply

Auto reboot on power loss

Temperature monitors

Error correction code (ECC)-protected memory


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SAP reference landscape on IBM PureFlex System

The SAP reference landscape on IBM PureFlex System section provides an introduction to the SAP

landscape topology and example reference landscapes for IBM POWER and AIX based core SAP

systems running on IBM PureFlex System.

Introduction to SAP landscape topology

SAP customer landscapes consist of several SAP systems, each supporting a specific business

application or dedicated to development and testing purposes.

The most common SAP applications are combined as SAP Business Suite, which combines functions for

enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain

management (SCM), and business warehouse (BW). All of these modules (and much more) can be

installed as dedicated SAP business applications too. Their common underlying technology stack is the

SAP NetWeaver layer. SAP NetWeaver provides typical middleware functionality to SAP sites such as

Web Application Server, Portal, Service Bus, reporting and so on. But the SAP NetWeaver layer also

provides abstraction of the SAP Business Suite towards hardware, OS and relational database

management systems (RDBMS). This enables the SAP Business Suite to run on top of almost all server

platforms.

SAP industry solutions and the All-In-One midmarket offering are based on the identical architecture and

contain a blend of the Business Suite modules customized with industry-specific data and transactions.

All of the Business Suite components can be either implemented in 2-tier or 3-tier mode. While the 2-tier

mode is the most efficient way of implementing a SAP instance from a resource and complexity

perspective, 3-tier implementations provide advantages in scalability, availability, and flexibility.

Figure 4: multiple level consolidation

Some applications can be extended with dedicated functional systems used to either complement, or to

accelerate transactions. Prominent examples are Adobe Document Server, TREX, BWA, and the SAP in-

memory database SAP HANA. These technology components do not rely on the NetWeaver stack and


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thus run on dedicated x86-based environments. For scalability reasons, these modules often follow a

scale-out paradigm.

The variety and count of back-end and complementary systems is customer individual, but in general,

demands for physical system consolidation by using virtualization technologies.

Another dimension of SAP landscape growth is the requirement of a strict isolation of production and

nonproduction environments by SAP. The nonproduction environments mostly consist of sandbox,

development, test, and QA systems. The SAP transport system links these stages and allows critical

changes in either the OS or the application being tested before being promoted to business-critical SAP

instances.

Supported SAP solution stacks

For the POWER nodes, the same software stacks as with discrete IBM Power Systems™ are supported,

that is IBM AIX®, IBM i, and Linux servers. Same is true for the common databases, IBM DB2® for Linux,

UNIX®, and Windows, DB2 for IBM i, and Oracle for AIX. Restrictions on release level might apply,

though. All supported OS/DB/SAP module combinations are maintained in the product availability matrix

on the SAP Service Marketplace. As one big advantage of IBM PureFlex System, SAP modules which are

not supported on the POWER nodes can be deployed in the same chassis using the x86 nodes.

The following table shows the supported OS and DB levels on the POWER nodes at time of

announcement:

X = supported

AIX 6.1, 7.1 IBM i 6.1, 7.1 PowerLinux

SLES 10,11

RHEL 5, 6

DB2 for i X

DB2 for Linux,

UNIX, and

Windows 9.7, 10

X X

MaxDB 7.8 X X

Oracle 11.0.2

incl. RAC

X

Sybase ASE 15.7 X

Table 3: supported OS and DB levels

On top of these OS and DB combinations, all SAP NetWeaver 7.x releases and modules are supported as

technology and middleware stack.


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SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management is also supported for IBM PureFlex System and

extends the FSM with application monitoring and cloud-enabling operations. More details on these are

described in the “Landscape monitoring and management” section.

Landscape planning

The landscape planning section describes the underlying concepts for system layout, the integration of

external storage solutions and integration aspects for existing SAP landscapes and complementary SAP

component.

System layout concepts

Applications running on IBM PureFlex System can take full advantage of the virtualization and partitioning

capabilities offered by the operating systems running on IBM PureFlex System. For POWER nodes, the

identical virtualization and partitioning capabilities are available for AIX, IBM i and PowerLinux using IBM

PowerVM® virtualization. For x86 nodes the VMware, kernel-based virtual machine (KVM), and Hyper-V

virtualization hypervisors are available. This enables a very flexible landscape implementation on IBM

PureFlex System.

The SAP concept of separating production from the development and test systems is applied by choosing

separate OS instances for those systems. Depending on the sizing requirements this can occupy a

dedicated node, or (in most cases) be an LPAR in a shared resource pool which is partitioned to contain

multiple components of a SAP Business Suite landscape.

In order to make best use of the physical resources, it is recommended to combine production LPARs with

high priority (that is, weighting factor) with nonproduction LPARs with lower priority on a POWER node.

This allows unexpected load peaks within a SAP production system to be covered by additional processor

resources out of these less-critical LPARs. Also, it is a good idea to collocate SAP instances with recurring

load peaks within a single node. For example, SAP systems serving users in different time-zones fall into

this category.

Independent from IBM PureFlex System, the advice is to apply generic IBM POWER7® best practices for

PowerVM parameterization as provided by the POWER brand and SAP sizing guidelines.

While processor (de-) allocation happens very dynamically within a millisecond timescale, this does not

apply to physical memory. Hence, the memory associated to an LPAR in a pool ideally covers the

maximum of the LPARs peak virtual processor allocation. SAP applications are rather memory consuming

with a large workload dependent variation, though. The available memory on a IBM PureFlex System

POWER node is sufficient for many SAP workloads, in particular for the very common SAP ERP

component, and such that do not make use of a Java™ stack. Whenever SAP sizing results (per SAP

Quick Sizer output for example) indicate that 8 GB per core are not sufficient or you want to consolidate

many SAP instances into a single shared pool, you have the following two options with IBM PureFlex

System in order to increase memory capacity:

Configure the POWER nodes with internal SSDs or boot from external storage, i.e. no HDDs

contained in node, in order to double the memory per core ratio.


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Configure and activate Active Memory Expansion (AME).

The expansion factor again is heavily workload dependent. As a starting point, assume memory

expansion by:

2.0 times for SAP ABAP-only dialogue servers

1.5 times for SAP DB servers, and only

1.1 times for SAP Java instances

Hardware accelerated AME introduced with the POWER7+ nodes is supported by SAP. Measurements

have shown no significant differences over the traditional, sw-only AME version.

AIX Workload Partitions (WPARs) are another option for saving physical memory on constrained nodes.

WPARs are supported for AIX 7 running on a node; also SAP supports WPARs. As WPARs reside within

an AIX host environment and not as dedicated LPARs, there are several advantages by deploying smaller

SAP systems into these.

WPARs do not require an incremental hypervisor and OS memory footprint.

WPARs can dynamically reallocate memory within the host AIX space. This does not cause a

delay by hypervisor activities and therefore results in real-time memory virtualization

As an additional benefit, WPARs require less OS maintenance efforts compared to an identical

number of LPARs, each running an own AIX or Linux OS. This is of interest, as soon as

operational costs are linked to the count of managed OS images.

The PowerVM hypervisor theoretically limits the smallest SAP instance to occupy as little as 1/10th of a

node core. But what is the largest SAP system that can reside within a single IBM PureFlex System

chassis? This question might be of interest for prospects that plan downsizing from large-scale servers.

If you assume a typical DB-to-Application Server ratio of 1:4 for SAP ERP production instances, this

results in the largest 3-tier SAP ERP system of (1*32 cores DB server + 4*32 cores application servers) =

160 cores, which can be covered by the POWER nodes that fit into a single 10U high IBM PureFlex

System chassis. As a rough approximation, assume effectively 2.000 SAPS per core (this is a

conservative approach for SAP production compared to a SAP sales and distribution benchmark

environment), which results in a single SAP system of 320.000 SAPS. This capacity is in the range of a

medium-sized discrete Power 795 server.

As most of the SAP systems are database centric, the limiting factor is not only the processor capacity, but

also a well-balanced I/O and database design. Details are covered in the following section.

For larger SAP database instances and in order to increase their resiliency, customers might consider

implementing a scale-out relational database management system (RDBMS) by deploying several nodes

as concurrent DB nodes. The internal IBM PureFlex System network bandwidth favors horizontal

scalability. IBM DB2 pureScale® or Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) are both supported for SAP

production use and have been tested on IBM PureFlex System. Beyond increased database scalability,

the failure of a single DB node will not cause the attached SAP systems to stop, but to continue with a

reduced DB throughput.

Introducing the IBM Systems Solution for SAP Business Suite and SAP HANA

SAP HANA is exclusively supported on certified hardware – for example IBM System x3950 X5 – that

uses the Intel EX processor architecture. As of today, HANA cannot be deployed on any compute node


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within the PureFlex chassis. However, certified x3950 X5 based HANA appliances, also including storage

and system software components, may be installed in the same PureFlex rack. A reference architecture

introducing this solution offering has been included in section Integration of complementary SAP

components of this document.

Storage attachment

In the previous section, the design criteria for the server nodes have been explained. This section explains

the storage and I/O relevant parameters for an IBM PureFlex System-based SAP landscape.

The IBM PureFlex System compute nodes allow adding a limited amount of internal storage to the node.

For most of the business applications, the available internal disk space might not be sufficient. Therefore,

storage needs to be supplied by an storage solution.. The IBM PureFlex System chassis can be equipped

with the internal Flex System V7000 storage node. This can be connected via the chassis internal

switches directly over Fibre Channel of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE).

Figure 5 Chassis internal storage attachment

External storage system, like the IBM Storwize V7000, or the IBM SAN Volume Controller, or any other

IBM System Storage can be connected through the chassis switches as well.


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Figure 6 Chassis internal and external storage attachment

Access to either of the storage solutions from the POWER nodes requires a Virtual I/O Server (VIOS)

installed. Due to the limited FC ports on the half wide compute nodes, a dual VIOS setup is only possible

using Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)as shown in figures 5 and 6 above.

IBM Flex System V7000

In general, the IBM PureFlex System can connect to any SAN storage solution. The internal IBM Flex

System V7000 is the most powerful and easy-to-use innovative midrange disk system in the storage

marketplace, and is the best fit for IBM PureFlex System. The Flex System V7000 is fully compatible with

the IBM Storwize V7000 storage system.

The integrated Easy Tier functionality provides significant performance improvements by

automatic migration of hot data blocks to high-performing SSDs

Thin provisioning consumes used space only, no pre-allocation required

Dynamic migration provides continuous availability of the applications while migrating data

online

IBM FlashCopy replication supports faster and more efficient data copies for online

backup, testing, or data mining

2.5-inch disk form factor, 24 per expansion unit, 240 total disks

Cluster up to 4 node pairs, and 960 disks

Each node pair provides dual RAID controller to provide high availability access

No SAN or fiber channel cabling is required between the compute and storage nodes.


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Real time disk compression reduces the amount of required storage space. Compression

rates are between 50% and 70% for SAP systems running on IBM i and the DB2 for i

database.

Integration of the V7000 storage management into the Flex System Manager

Value of Easy Tier to SAP

The SAP ERP system workloads represent online transaction processing (OLTP) characteristics.

Typically, not all data of the SAP system or database is accessed during a given time frame, for example,

during a 24-hour period. Statistically, there exist contiguously accessed data areas, some of which are hot.

These hot spots are part of the disk system that has significantly high activity and usually cause long wait

times for I/O requests. The change rate of the hot data areas is not in terms of minutes, but most likely

stays constant over a longer period of time, for example 24 hours.

Here, Easy Tier is able to monitor and move these hot areas from HDD to SSD. Easy Tier automatically

creates a data migration plan to incrementally move the hottest data to SSDs and the cold data back to the

spinning disks. Easy Tier adapts to clients’ changing workloads, and it does this without any administrative

effort to constantly tune their storage systems. As a result, the SAP transaction time is reduced.

Value of Real Time Disk Compression to SAP

Today, traditional database systems provide various compression technologies to store data. This requires

know-how to identify which tables to compress, and to setup and maintain efficient compression over time.

With real time disk compression offered by Storwize V7000, the complete disk set of the partition running

the SAP systems can be easily compressed. Disk compression saves between 50 and 70 percent of

storage space with minimal performance impact to most SAP workloads. This is comparable to native DB

gains and can save license and operational DB-admin cost. A combination of two compression

technologies does not bring further advantages.

IBM Flex System V7000 Storage Node

The IBM Flex System V7000 Storage Node requires a minimum of 2 full wide slots to be installed into an

IBM Flex System chassis. It provides direct Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and iSCSI

connection to the PureFlex compute nodes. The Flex System Manager will identify the storage system

automatically:


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The Flex System V7000 management user interface (GUI) is compatible with the Storwize V7000 GUI.

IBM PureFlex System and Storwize V7000

The Storwize V7000 storage can be connected to the IBM PureFlex System chassis either through Fiber

Channel (SAN) or through Ethernet (iSCSI). Both the connections provided block-level access to the

storage system.


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With IBM PureFlex System, the test team recommends SAN access by using the IBM PureFlex System

integrated SAN switch, where four FC connections are required to ensure multipathing. More connections

are not required for connecting to a single chassis.

Setting up a stretched cluster is not supported by the integrated V7000 SVC. Customers will require a

traditional SVC to support such a resilient disk setup. Of course, other technologies like AIX LVM

mirroring, Metro Mirror etc. are supported.

Configuration of Flex System V7000 and Storwize V7000

To gain maximum flexibility in respect to capacity utilization and performance workload balancing, , the

number of storage pools configured (Managed Disk Groups) should be as few as possible for a single

V7000 system (node pair) Depending on the performance requirement, the use of Easy Tier in

combination with SSDs is recommended.

A fully equipped chassis is capable to handle 300,000 SAPS, leading to a workload of approximately

100,000 IOPS. Assuming a storage demand of 100 TB usable results in the following recommendation:

24 SSD 2.5-inch, 400 GB each, plugged into the V7000 controller

Four expansion units, each with 24 SAS drives 2.5-inch, each 900 GB

One expansion unit, 23 SAS drives 2.5-inch, each 900 GB, and 1 SSD 2.5 inches, 400 GB

(spare)

RAIDs (Managed Disk) are configured as RAID 5, 7+1

Total of 25 SSD and 119 SAS

Integration with existing SAP landscapes

The IBM PureFlex System chassis can be integrated into existing SAP landscapes. Physically, the IBM

PureFlex System chassis fits into any standard 19-inch rack, which provides a minimum of 10 spare height

units. Other, non-IBM PureFlex System components can be housed within the same standard rack as long

as power distribution units provide sufficient energy. A fully populated IBM PureFlex System chassis can

contain up to six 2.500 watts energy supplies, which can be configured for several redundancy modes.

The Ethernet and FC switches provide connectivity to an existing network and storage infrastructure. As

discussed in the previous section, the IBM PureFlex System FC switch connects to existing SAN storage

solutions. LPARs stored on the SAN can be migrated to an IBM PureFlex System POWER node by

assigning the disks to the IBM PureFlex System node’s VIOS and boot from those. This allows very fast

migration of exiting SAP systems to IBM PureFlex System with minimal downtime.

External SAN storage can be attached to a new PureFlex chassis in several ways. Ideally, external LUNs

are connected via the integrated V7000 SAN Volume Controller as managed disks. Thus, storage

administration can exploit SVC virtualization and management capabilities. If latter is not a focus, the

PureFlex FC-switches can be attached to existing SAN-fabrics using transparent NPIV mode, see Figure

6. Storage vendors need to support this, and storage / SAN administration will be performed with native

vendor tools, not via FSM.


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Tests have shown that IBM PowerVM Live Partition Mobility (LPM) is possible between nodes and

external systems, given the network is set up appropriately. This allows to migrate running LPARs from

discrete Power Systems to POWER nodes and to migrate from POWER nodes to discrete Power

Systems.

The FSM administration layer can co-exist with already implemented cross-platform management solutions like, e.g. the IBM Systems Director. It also can become integrated with higher level enterprise service management software as a monitored and managed layer.

Figure 7: integration of management components


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Integration of complementary SAP components

Certain SAP components are not available on all SAP supported operating systems and databases. If

such components are required to support customers’ business processes, they need to be installed on top

of a supported OS, which is not necessarily the same location where the SAP core applications are stored.

With IBM PureFlex System, supporting both x86 and POWER processor-based operating systems, those

complementary components can be tightly integrated into the landscape. The required hardware

resources can be hosted within one IBM PureFlex System chassis. Besides the compact server footprint in

the datacenter, the internal network eliminates the need for network cables and switches to connect the

systems. The IBM PureFlex System management provided by CMM and FSM reduces the complexity of

managing the heterogeneous environment.

This allows the creation of a complete SAP landscape within a single box. Core SAP Business Suite

components are running on the POWER nodes while complementary components, such as SAP

Enterprise Search, and SAP Business Warehouse Accelerator can run on x86 nodes.

The IBM Systems Solution for SAP Business Suite and SAP HANA

SAP HANA is the strategic in-memory database by SAP AG to accelerate in particular business analytics,

but also transactional business. In order to achieve magnitudes of acceleration, SAP HANA exploits

specific design features of the Intel EX processor architecture with optimized low-level coding.

Consequently, SAP HANA is exclusively supported on certified hardware using this processor type – for

example IBM System x3950 X5.

The IBM SAP HANA offering is a standardized portfolio of System x hardware (nnnn-Hxx systems) and

internal (SSD, SAS) storage for data persistency, plus software components, and surrounding services.

Exclusively Linux, namely SLES 11, is supported as operating system.

As of today, such an appliance cannot be deployed on any compute node within the PureFlex chassis.

Instead, IBM x3950 X5 based SAP HANA building blocks may be installed into the same rack as the

PureFlex chassis and act as external HANA compute nodes. Connection to both x86, and POWER based

internal compute nodes, running standard SAP applications or complementary SAP HANA instances, is

done via Ethernet through a TOR switch.

A big advantage of re-using external technology is that well established and beneficial concepts can be 1:1

applied for PureFlex focused landscapes, too. As an excelling example, IBM GPFS (General Parallel File

System) not only enables the IBM SAP HANA solution to grow beyond the capacity of a single system into

a scale-out solution, but also adds high availability and disaster recovery features to the IBM HANA

appliance.

IBM intents to extend the scope of the FlexSystem Manager to allow integrated management of PureFlex

and IBM SAP HANA solution in the future. The workload optimized x3950 X5 HANA appliances will be

logically attached to the FSM, which provides functions like HW management, health check, power control

(on, off, restart), Call Home and Update Management (Firmware, Drivers). IBM plans subject to change

without notice.


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The IBM PureFlex System portfolio offers the integration of following building blocks (T-shirt sizes) in order

to meet SAP HANA sizing requirements:

Building block

Server (MTM)

CPUs Main memory

S+ X3950 X5

(7143-HAx) 2x Intel Xeon

E7-8870 256 GB DDR3

M X3950 X5

(7143-HBx) 4x Intel Xeon

E7-8870 512 GB DDR3

L

X3950 X5 (7143HBx)

+ X3950 X5 (7143HCx)

8x Intel Xeon E7-8870

1024 GB DDR3

Table 4: IBM SAP HANA Appliance building blocks

The IBM SAP HANA Appliance servers may be integrated in an IBM PureFlex System rack. In case of

larger scale-out configurations the x3950 servers will be deployed with separate racks.

SAP technology and management components, as well as common operational functions, like the Tivoli

Storage Manager for Backup/Restore of ERP and HANA may be deployed on PureFlex compute nodes

and act on both environments.

Figure 8: Combination of SAP Business Suite on PureFlex and SAP HANA on System x3950 X5 Workload Optimized Solution for SAP HANA


21

SAP on AIX reference landscapes for IBM PureFlex System

1. Minimal system = ERP / BW all on POWER nodes

This is the simplest case of deploying

core SAP components in an IBM

PureFlex System System. All SAP

modules are supported on POWER and

either an AIX, or PowerLinux OS. Two

nodes for physical redundancy, each with

PowerVM and VIO virtualization are

used.

In order to make use of autonomous load

balancing by PowerVM, it is

recommended to mix production and

nonproduction SAP instances within a

shared processor pool on each of the

single nodes. SAP 2-tier deployments

need to be preferred for smaller systems.

Consider packing nonproduction

systems into WPARs for less LPAR

complexity.

2. 3-tier SAP ERP with scale-out DB and application-server tier all on POWER nodes

This option combines DB scale-out with

an SAP 3-tier application-server scale

out. The advantage of a multinode DB

is a hot-standby high availability,

without DB downtime as with classical

cold-standby cluster solutions. Also,

both the nodes contribute to an

aggregate DB throughput when in

normal operation. As such a setup

appears for business-critical scenarios,

a hot-standby FSM appliance has also

been configured (planned in 2012).

This in any case, ensures that the

overall system monitoring and

adjustment can take place.

Figure 9: minimal system

Figure 10: scale-out database


22

3. Mixed system = SAP Business Suite core applications, TREX, and non-SAP applications

This setup makes use of the IBM

PureFlex System heterogeneous

capabilities. While several core SAP

Business Suite applications stay on

POWER nodes, they are now

complemented by SAP TREX and a

NetWeaver development

environment which are supported

only on an x86 architecture. There

are more than these components

there are newer appliances, such as

BWA and HANA, which mandate

such a setup.

Further applications can be

consolidated into the same IBM

PureFlex System chassis as well.

4. SAP NetWeaver landscape = SAP Business Suite core applications, SAP Enterprise Portal,

SAP Process Integration (service bus), and SAP Business Objects

This is a heterogeneous setup with

majority of SAP core systems on AIX.

SAP Business Objects XI runs on

larger AIX LPAR for scaling, while the

Business Objects end-user oriented

systems are consolidated in virtual

machines hosted on an x86 node.

This scenario also outlines the

capability of IBM PureFlex System to

run x86 Linux and PowerLinux

distributions. This applies to non-SAP

and many SAP components. Inter-

system communication strongly takes

advantage of the internal networking

bandwidth of IBM PureFlex System.

Figure 12: SAP Process Integration and SAP Business Objects

Figure 11: complementary components


23

5. Mixed system with SAP HANA = SAP Business Suite core applications deployed on

PureFlex nodes plus SAP HANA Appliances (= IBM Systems Solution for SAP Business

Suite and SAP HANA)

This setup makes use of the externalized IBM PureFlex System capabilities in shape of the IBM Systems Solution for SAP Business Suite and SAP HANA.

Several core SAP applications are

deployed on internal POWER or x86

nodes and are complemented by an

external SAP HANA environment which is

being built of the x3950 X5 based standard

IBM appliance offering.

This enables customers running SAP

HANA always to benefit from newest

certified System x HANA appliances and

operational improvements in that space

while creating administrative synergies

between the SAP HANA and traditional

SAP Business Suite infrastructure.

Starting from physical integration today,

the FlexSystem Manager will provide

integrated administrative capabilities.

The IBM PureFlex system offers an

integrated infrastructure for all SAP

components. SAP applications on

PureFlex System compute nodes may

access SAP HANA DB on IBM x3950 X5

servers as well as traditional data bases

(e.g. IBM DB2) running on PureFlex

System.

Figure 13: SAP HANA Integration


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High availability and disaster recovery

The single point of failures (SPOFs) for SAP systems stay untouched by the introduction of IBM PureFlex

System. These are the database server and the central services for ABAP and Java including the enqueue

server.

These SPOFs occur within each production SAP business component of the landscape, that is multiple

clusters (such as ERP, CRM, SCM, and so on) must be implemented.

In addition, central technical building blocks such as SAP Enterprise Portal (for user access), Process

Integration as Enterprise Service Bus need to be setup resilient.

While the high availability and disaster recovery concepts for all these SPOFs are well known in general,

they have not been tested in a special IBM PureFlex System environment at time of authoring this paper.

As scenario 2 indicates, multi-node databases like Oracle RAC are supported on IBM PureFlex System.

Landscape monitoring and management

As the SAP landscapes tend to become a heterogeneous aggregation of servers and operating systems,

this implies a certain level of complexity for SAP landscape administration. Consolidating the SAP

landscape into an IBM PureFlex System with its consistent management capabilities helps to reduce this

complexity.

The combination of the IBM PureFlex System and SAP NetWeaver technology offers multiple native

monitoring and administration layers for the complete hardware and software stack. These are:

Chassis Management Module

Flex System Management

SAP Computing Center Management System (SAP CCMS)

SAP Solution Manager

− SAP Solution Manager aims at SAP application management and business key

performance indicator (KPI) monitoring, but also is a mandatory tool for SAP

release and patch management

SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management (LVM)

The IBM PureFlex System FSM and SAP LVM Enterprise are optional components; the remaining ones

are part of virtualized base installation.

In order to gain maximum efficiency for daily operations, it is important to select the most appropriate tools

for specific administrative tasks and organizations. In addition, consistency and transparency need to be

maintained.


25

The following table provides a high-level orientation for a selected set of administrator tasks in SAP

ecosystems.

CMM FSM SAP LVM SAP CCMS SAP Solution Manager

Chassis topology view and administration

Through CMM

Virtualization metrics Through Flex System

Manager

Virtualization topology and administration

Through Flex System

Manager

OS, DB, SAP performance

Provisioning of a new virtual server Through Flex System

Manager

Virtual server start / stop and live migration

Through Flex System

Manager

SAP service reallocation

SAP system refresh / cloning

Alerting Chassis focus Systems focus

Task monitoring

OS, DB, SAP Base

Business KPIs

Integration to an upper-level enterprise management

Into Flex System

Manager

Into SAP Solution Manager

Table 5: monitoring and management layers

FSM is based on IBM Systems Director and provides comparable functions. For POWER nodes, FSM is

mandatory for advanced virtualization management. As most of these functions are beneficial (if not

mandatory) for SAP (production) systems, the FSM appears as an essential component for SAP on IBM

PureFlex environments.

As a single point of control, FSM provides a web-based interface to manage all aspects of the IBM

PureFlex System hardware components. For example, an interactive chassis map provides status

overview and serves as an entry point to manage the different resources. Setup wizards guide you through

the process of initial setup and maintenance tasks.


26

Figure 14: FSM chassis map

SAP CCMS is fully functional for IBM PureFlex System. It allows monitoring and adjustment of base SAP

application and database settings. Also PowerVM-specific metrics, such as LPAR and WPAR resources,

AME settings and so on can be accesses through the native SAP administrator GUI.

IBM PureFlex System integration with SAP NetWeaver Landscape

Virtualization Management

The described cloud solution for SAP landscapes becomes available by a combination of the IBM FSM

capabilities and SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management for automation tasks at the

application level.

This solution enables common cloud scenarios with the SAP software stack and the underlying

infrastructure. It aims to connect application management services with system virtualization and storage

management services. It is a management tool for customers who run their SAP systems in their own data

center and want to become more efficient by automating provisioning and cloning tasks.

Various scenarios around system copy and system refresh are supported, including post-copy automation.

Those labor-expensive tasks have been made easy with SAP Landscape Virtualization Management and

IBM PureFlex System.

In more detail the following use cases are covered for cloud environments running SAP applications:

Cloning of a SAP system (creating an identical copy in a fenced environment)

Creating an initial copy of a SAP system (with changing the SAP system identifier)

Refreshing a test SAP system with the content of a productive system

Automation of system copy/refresh post processing activities

Monitoring and visualization of virtualized SAP landscapes


27

SAP Landscape Virtualization Management is in many cases complementary to the inherent IBM PureFlex

System management layers. SAP Landscape Virtualization Management enables access to many relevant

IBM PureFlex System and virtualization parameters to the SAP management software and provides IT

self-services to SAP administrators.

The available IBM and SAP literature which describes the interaction of IBM Systems Director and SAP

Landscape Virtualization Management also applies to IBM PureFlex System. FSM is the enriched IBM

Systems Director, specifically optimized and packaged for IBM PureFlex System.

IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager adds a unique value for SAP landscapes. This software enables

application-aware, database-consistent online backups which can be used to create the cloned system. By

exploiting storage snapshot techniques, the backup is taken almost instantaneously.

The solution has been developed as modular building blocks. This provides a high degree of flexibility and

extensibility. The following table shows the products and editions that are used for each scenario.

Table 6: Use cases per management layer

Management components

SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management 1.0 integrates with the following IBM

management products:

IBM Flex System Manager

FSM is used for virtualization monitoring and management and for the operating system

provisioning scenarios on IBM PureFlex System.

IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager 3.1.0.1

Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager is required for storage cloning of online SAP systems.

System

monitoring

SAP

relocate

AIX

provisioning

SAP

Clone

SAP

Copy

SAP

Refresh

Flex

System

Manager

(not needed) (not needed) (not needed) (not needed)

FlashCopy

Manager

(not needed) (not needed) (not needed)

Storage any NFS, GPFS,

SVC, V7000,

or XIV

any SVC, V7000,

or XIV

SVC, V7000,

or XIV

SVC, V7000,

or XIV

SAP LVM Standard

Edition

Standard

Edition

Standard

Edition

Enterprise

Edition

Enterprise

Edition

Enterprise

Edition


28

The management products can be installed on a single AIX LPAR within IBM PureFlex System.

Alternatively, the products might be installed on different servers, for example, SAP NetWeaver

Landscape Virtualization Management may run on any of the supported SAP platforms.

The following graphic shows a high-level view of how SAP Landscape Virtualization Management

integrates with the IBM PureFlex System / FSM stack to enable cloud scenarios on this platform.

Figure 15: SAP Landscape Virtualization Manager integration with FSM

Managed SAP landscape

The following IBM PureFlex System infrastructure is supported with SAP NetWeaver Landscape

Virtualization Management:

IBM POWER nodes

AIX 6.1 or 7.1

IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize V7000, or IBM XIV® Storage System1

SAP NetWeaver 7.x using IBM DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows, Oracle Database, or

SAP MaxDB is supported.

1 SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000 support requires SAP Landscape Virtualization Management SP3


29

It is assumed that the storage is attached using single or dual VIOS (IBM PowerVM VIOS). For the

storage-cloning scenario, the SAN storage system must be attached in the N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)

mode. NPIV is a FC adapter (HBA) feature that allows multiple LPARs to share a physical port.

The clone is created using the FlashCopy feature of the SAN Volume Controller or the snapshot feature of

the XIV Storage System. These methods create a logical copy of the data volumes within seconds while

the SAP source system stays fully operational.

Whenever an IBM PureFlex System environment needs to be integrated into an existing enterprise

monitoring and management solution (for example, an existing IBM Systems Director hierarchy or the IBM

Tivoli Suite), FSM provides interfaces for seamless upward integration.

Furthermore, SAP Landscape Virtualization Management can be used to manage SAP landscapes within

and outside of IBM PureFlex System and also across different platforms


30

SAP-specific offerings for IBM PureFlex System

This section lists specific offerings for SAP on IBM PureFlex System.

Lab services and IBM support

As capacity and capability of a larger IBM PureFlex System installation are comparable to large scale

UNIX or mainframe installations, IBM provides hardware and software support beyond the standards of

commodity blade systems.

Including three Global Centers of Competence, IBM Maintenance and Technical Support Services provide

integrated support on the FSM-based environments when there is not a clear understanding of whether

there is a hardware or a software issue. All of this can be backed up with the latest version of IBM

Electronic Service Agent ™, which has been enhanced for IBM PureFlex System and proactively monitors

and reports hardware events back to IBM support. Even if a client has a comprehensive in-house support

organization, this can selectively be enhanced through the addition of specific services within the portfolio

to cover critical areas of weakness or exposure.

For complex IBM PureFlex System environments and where mission-critical applications are deployed

(which applies to SAP production systems) premium services are available and cover:

Enhanced technical support / custom technical support

Microcode support / managed technical support

Committed fix services

Availability management / hard disk retention


31

Summary

This paper provides reference architectures of how heterogeneous SAP landscapes can be consolidated

using IBM PureFlex System. While running the core business applications on POWER nodes with AIX as

operating system, complementary SAP components are added on x86 nodes. IBM PureFlex System

enables a very tight integration of infrastructure components including servers, networking and storage.

Seamless monitoring and management functions of the infrastructure are provided by the FSM.

The integration aspect is taken even further with the integration of the SAP Landscape Virtualization

Manager application with the FSM. This enables SAP cloud usage scenarios for SAP systems running on

IBM PureFlex System.

For individual questions or to request a briefing about this topic, contact the IBM SAP International

Competence Center at: [email protected]


32

Resources

These websites provide useful references to supplement the information contained in this paper:

IBM Systems on PartnerWorld

ibm.com/partnerworld/systems

IBM Redbooks

ibm.com/redbooks

IBM cloud computing

ibm.com/solutions/sap/us/en/landing/cloud_solutions.html

IBM Cloud Solutions for SAP clients

ibm.com/cloud-computing/us/en/

IBM SmartCloud Entry for AIX on PartnerWorld (requires PartnerWorld login)

ibm.com/partnerworld/page/stg_com_sys_smartcloud

SAP HANA on workload optimized IBM System x appliances

ibm.com/solutions/sap/hana

IBM internal SSI-URL with a collection of SAP related PureSystem materials

https://w3-

03.sso.ibm.com/sales/support/ShowDoc.wss?docid=SGDN258263T70735C63&node=brands,B6000|brands,BI5

00|clientset,IA|alliances,T5000|alliances,T5150|channel,DR|channel,F2F|solution,Q00|solution,210&appname=C

C_SSIGD

select the “Collateral” Tab in “Main Content” section

Related SAP on PureFlex paper with System x focus: “Reference Architecture - SAP

Systems on IBM PureSystems based on x86 nodes”

http://w3.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102167

http://www.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102167

http://www-03.ibm.com/partnerworld/partnerinfo/src/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102167

Related SAP on PureFlex paper with IBM i focus: “Efficiently deploying SAP landscapes

on the IBM PureFlex System”




Virtualization for SAP on IBM PureSystems with Microsoft Hyper-V


IBM internal SAP HANA Wiki

https://w3-connections.ibm.com/wikis/home?lang=en-

us#!/wiki/Waef4c0eb0f35_427f_a25e_670e392682b1/page/SAP%20HANA








https://w3-connections.ibm.com/wikis/home?lang=en-us#!/wiki/Waef4c0eb0f35_427f_a25e_670e392682b1/page/SAP%20HANA

https://w3-connections.ibm.com/wikis/home?lang=en-us#!/wiki/Waef4c0eb0f35_427f_a25e_670e392682b1/page/SAP%20HANA


33

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presented here to communicate IBM's current investment and development activities as a good faith effort

to help with our customers' future planning.

Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard IBM benchmarks in a controlled

environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary depending upon

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